The meaning of freedom

Colleges and other providers are promised significant new freedoms by the coalition government in the way they are governed and managed. So, what does this mean in practice? For example, if colleges are free and can have whatever governing arrangements they like, where does that leave capital assets and to whom do they belong if the college goes bust?

We will be holding a range of conversations with principals and chairs of governors in the coming months to flesh out what “freedom” means, consider the limits of what can be done and explore the options for change.

Do providers go for mutualisation, joint governance, retaining the status quo or a form of governance yet to be envisaged? There are so many possibilities for freedom around and we know a whole set of possible governing arrangements will spring up. In partnership with the AoC, the 157 Group and NIACE, we will help providers find the best way forward. We will also scrutinise what’s working and what is not working.

Some things are, or should be, a given in exchange for those freedoms and some of these are spelled out in NIACE’s recent report Colleges in their Communities. How do colleges and others engage the community, decide what is required and design what is needed?

One key role of governors after all is to look after the community assets – the fabric, buildings and learning provision – protect them for future generations and make best use of them now.

There will be others around the table in the conversation including the AELP. It could be argued that although the college is the biggest player in the community, it might want to cede a particular area of work to a training provider. There will be a lot of horse-trading to do and the overriding aim must be to drive up performance by having each organisation focus on the bits they do best.

Some colleges are already doing this; for example, they might concentrate on the vocational and hand A-levels to schools and Sixth Form Colleges. There is evidence that the generalist approach to FE doesn’t necessarily work well and so, with the help of John Hayes, the FE and skills minister, we will be looking further at the definition of adult further education. We have already seen excellent examples of community focus in areas such as Oldham and Luton.

However, this raises an interesting question of, who is accountable for what? If all providers specialise in what they do well, the danger is that the most problematic or specialist bit doesn’t get done. How do we retain the broadest choice of provision the government expects of us working together? Which is why LSIS is engaged in these conversations – to help providers work together in determining what stages they need to go through, reconsider their future role and improve their understanding of what a community needs. This will help them define more clearly their role and decide what they are best-placed to provide.

This gives us a chance to connect and to:
• understand the new freedoms
• talk to other governors about how freedoms can be deployed
• do it side by side with chief executives
• put community, voter, citizen at the heart of the service
• learn from other professional practices and
• give providers the chance to open up their doors

There will be different answers in different places and our job will be to help colleges and other providers through and point where others have had a go and succeeded. We have already kicked things off with research into the different range of organisations and understanding what is happening at the moment. The AoC is just completing research into community engagement. New ideas are burgeoning such as the creation of the entrepreneurial college enshrined in the recently-formed Gazelle Group.

It is important when considering change to allow colleges and other providers, within reason, to move at their own pace. We are in a world where some move faster than others, some are middling, while others are late adopters. We will find that some of the things people attempt don’t work. It is just as important to identify what doesn’t work as what does. Also geography matters; things will work in some areas but not in others.

There is a big role working with governors. If we can demonstrate that working in a more collegiate and collective manner results in overall improvement, that will be a good message. However, we have to recognise that it may not always be so; others may find a more centralised and highly focused approach can deliver.

As to the timescale, we will want to see the sector taking freedoms up throughout 2012-13. However, it’s a long haul and needs the policy stability promised by the Government in New Challenges, New Chances, its response to their consultations with the sector.

This will work if people believe it can happen. So we will constantly monitor and respond to developments, carry out research, disseminate the various models and support innovation. But above all, we won’t be “telling” people what to do because it’s not that sort of world any more.

Rob Wye is Chief Executive of the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS)

AoC survey reveals a ‘worrying’ drop in low level learners

Worrying trends have been revealed in the recruitment of Level 1 and Entry Level students.

In their latest survey on 16-18 recruitment, the Association of Colleges (AoC) has found Level 1 learner numbers declined by 6.6 per cent and Entry Level figures by around 6.4 per cent on last year.

The data was collected from 231 institutions enrolling more than 530,000 young people aged 16-18. It shows overall 16-18 year old learner numbers in the sample declined by 1.78 per cent between 2010/11 and 2011/12.

However, the recruitment pattern was varied, with more than 41 per cent of colleges reporting an increase in enrolment numbers and around 59 per cent a decline.

AoC chief executive Martin Doel said the survey “gives us the most detailed picture yet of recruitment among colleges from September 2011 onwards and allows us to make some valuable conclusions”.

Mr Doel also said the autumn term recruitment drive of colleges “appears to have had a positive impact on enrolment” and that the decline of less than two per cent is consistent with earlier studies.

However, he added: “Worryingly, however, the trends related to Level 1 and Entry Level students that were identified in earlier versions of this survey, echoed in the latest statistics about young people not in education or training, continue.

“The drop in the number of students leaving school with low levels of qualifications starting at college this year has been the most dramatic, even if it has improved since the previous study.

“In addition, the decline is steeper in the most deprived areas of the country.”

“If these young people are not studying at college then they are most likely to drop out of education altogether because most schools do not provide the types of courses they need, and work-based learning routes like apprenticeships are closed to them.”

The task now, Mr Doel said, is identifying the reasons behind the figures.

Mr Doel added: “Although the recruitment picture is clearer it is, sadly, less obvious as to what is driving this decline in enrolments among those students leaving school with the least qualifications.

“Our members tell us that the loss of the Connexions service and the erosion of independent advice and guidance is likely to have had a significant impact, as have, say members, local authority transport cuts and the disappearance of the Education Maintenance Allowance.

“Students’ worries about employment prospects and higher education costs may also be a stumbling block to aspiration.”

In the meantime, Mr Doel wants the government to continue to work with the AoC and its partners to understand “cause and effect” in the behaviours of the age group.

He said: “In tandem, we believe that there is a need for a more co-ordinated policy programme across Government departments, predicated on robust research.”

Government publish FE Choices

Private providers ahead of FE colleges in government learner satisfaction survey.

Learners think private training providers listen and respond to their views better than general FE colleges, according to analysis by FE Week.

Private training providers outscored colleges in every category of the learner satisfaction survey, published online in the ‘FE Choices Publication of Outputs’, formerly known as the Framework for Excellence, by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

“Undoubtedly the ratings for independent providers are encouraging,” a spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) said.

“The high turn-out of our members at quality improvements events that AELP organises regularly across the regions in partnership with the likes of Ofsted and LSIS demonstrates that there is a real appetite out there to deliver a better service to both learners and employers.”

The biggest difference in views were for the learner satisfaction categories titled “listening to learners’ views” and “acting on learners’ views”. Private training providers had an average score that was 11 per cent higher than general FE colleges in both categories, based on learners at all age groups.

In particular, private training providers received a satisfaction score that was 13 per cent higher for learners aged between 16 and 18.

The AELP spokesperson added: “The ability to be flexible in response to employer and learner needs is certainly a hallmark of the provision that independent providers are offering. Learners also appreciate the close links that our members have developed with local employers, which obviously counts for a lot in the current economic climate.”

Learners aged between 16 and 18 gave private training providers a rating 10 per cent higher than FE colleges based on “how good or bad” they thought they were as an organisation.

In the same category, respondents at all ages gave private training providers a rating seven per cent higher than FE colleges.

A spokesperson for the Association of Colleges (AoC) told FE Week: “Colleges take the views of their students very seriously, indeed they run their own internal student satisfaction surveys throughout the year to garner such views.”

“The feedback information available on ‘FE Choices’ is another source of helpful information that can be used by our member colleges and other training providers and we know that individual colleges will be examining the data and thinking about how to further enhance their student experience, or satisfaction levels.”

The spokesperson added: “However, a single satisfaction score never tells the full story and does not provide a truly meaningful measurement.

“Great care needs to be taken when making comparisons of this nature, as FE Week are doing, as there are so many variables at play; for example, general further education colleges teach and train thousands of students of all different ages on a wide variety of courses, yet they may be being compared here with all training providers, some of which may only train small groups of 35 people.”

Learners rated private training providers eight per cent higher than FE colleges based on the “support” they were given on the programme.

Toni Pearce, vice president (Further Education) at the National Union of Students (NUS), said: “I think it’s important to take care when looking at these results, particularly when looking at the differences between different types of providers.

“The difference between private providers and colleges is not entirely surprising, as numbers and experiences between the two are often not comparable.

“It looks as though experiences of learners at colleges do appear to be more consistent.”

Learner satisfaction is a performance measure released as part of ‘FE Choices’ and based on a questionnaire of learners’ views.

Questions include the amount of information, advice and guidance given by a provider, the quality of teaching and learning and the learner’s overall satisfaction with the programme.

Geoff Russell, chief executive of the SFA, said: “The publication of FE Choices is an important feature of the government’s approach to working in partnership with the sector to develop a new sector-led FE Public Information framework.”

Private training providers also outscored general FE colleges in the employment rate data published in ‘FE Choices’.

The employment rate, the proportion of learners who completed a LSC-funded programme in 2008/09 and then entered employment by 2009/10, was on average 20 per cent higher in private training providers than in general FE colleges.

Questions have also been raised about the quality of the data published in the ‘FE Choices Publication of Outputs’.

Elmfield Training received an average employer satisfaction rating of 2.8 out of 10, despite receiving a seven for “Likelihood to recommend this organisation”.

A spokesperson for Elmfield Training said: “On reviewing the detailed information on the gateway we believe there is a problem with the survey data. We have alerted the Skills Funding Agency to this anomaly. They have assured us they will look into the matter.”

Click here for FE Week’s analysis of the numbers

Helena Kennedy QC, Labour peer and barrister

“This is no misery memoir,” says the Labour peer and barrister Helena Kennedy of her upbringing in the south side of Glasgow. Raised in a two-room and kitchen tenement, with her parents, aunt and three sisters, there may have not been much money around, but there was plenty of love.

As part of a large, close-knit Catholic family, there were endless family gatherings and cousins to play with. And in the multicultural south side of Glasgow, home, amongst others, to Italians, Poles and Lithuanians, there was a strong sense of community.

There were two great influences in Kennedy’s life – the Labour Party and the Catholic Church – both of which helped foster a strong sense of responsibility towards others.

She recalls her mother helping women who were married to alcoholics, others who had been beaten by their husbands. “They [my parents] had nothing to put on the table and my mother would go to the cupboard and find something,” she says.

Despite being “working class people” who hadn’t had the opportunities to further their own education, Kennedy’s parents had a high regard for learning. Her father, who she describes as “a wonderful man,” was a newspaper packer and trade unionist who “went to the library every week” and took a keen interest in politics.

Being a teenager in the 1960s (rather than the 1950s as her older sisters had been) made all the difference to the opportunities available to her, she says. While her sisters left school at 15, one to become a typist, the other to join the civil service, Kennedy chose to stay on at school and go to university.

Moving down to London to study Law was exhilarating but hard, she says, and there were many times when she was “on her uppers,” struggling to make ends meet.

Things were particularly tough during her pupilage (the final stage of training to be a barrister) and Kennedy recalls begging her bank manager to lend her some money. “I remember going to the Bank of Scotland but because I was a woman they wouldn’t give me an overdraft.

This was in the 1970s remember, and they didn’t believe I was going to be a barrister.”

My job was to tap well-to-do people on the shoulder and ask them for money”

An offer of help came from an unlikely source – the father of her boyfriend at the time, a Conservative MP, who said that if she moved to his bank he would guarantee her an overdraft. In the event, having convinced her new bank manager that she had a bright future ahead of her, she didn’t need to accept his offer – but his willingness to help made a lasting impression on her.

Her anxiety about borrowing money is something that is still experienced by working class young people today, she says. And with tuition fees set to rise to up to £9k a year from the autumn, what is still not understood by policy makers is that this fear can be paralysing for young people from working class backgrounds.

The argument that under the new fee regime, loans can be paid back later or over a longer period time might make sense for “people with safety nets, who have parents who own their home,” but for those who don’t, the idea of debt can be “intimidating and frightening,” she says.

Kennedy’s interest in widening participation grew when she was asked be on the National Commission for Education in 1995, where she ended up chairing the debate on further and higher education and became “quite annoyed” about what was going on in FE.

After the incorporation of colleges in 1993, which freed them up from local authority control, lots of colleges became so busy competing with each other, “compensatory education”– offering second chances to those who hadn’t got the best out of their schooling – dropped off the agenda, says Kennedy.

Her influential report Learning Works set out a radical vision to change that, drawing those kinds of learners back into education and breaking the cycle of economic and social exclusion.

It also planted the seed of an idea that would eventually become the educational charity known as the Helena Kennedy Foundation.

The idea for a foundation for young people in the further and higher education sectors came from the influential college principal Ann Limb, who recognised that moving from colleges to university could be a particular challenge for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Kennedy’s job was to “tap well-to-do people on the shoulder” and ask them for money, and having started off with just one bursary in 2000, the charity now offers 150 a year.

Kennedy admits she has “learned on the job” with one of the most important lessons being that social capital – that is having access to the right kind of advice and connections – can be just as important as money. “I see it all around me with the children of my friends, as well as my own – we all know people. And children from ordinary backgrounds don’t know anyone.”

But for young people from working class backgrounds, the idea of moving in different circles can in itself be intimidating, she says, recalling her own experiences when she first moved down to London to study law. In her first few months, she had to slow down her strong Scottish accent (which she has retained and says has been an “asset at the bar”) to make herself understood. “They would actually talk over me and go ‘What did she say?’” she recalls, with indignation.

She quickly realised that these young men (and they were, she says pointedly, mostly men) with the ‘ya ya’ public school voices were not as clever as they appeared. “It took me a while to realise that it was all purely cosmetic.

It was all learned confidence and when you got beyond it, they were either less smart than you first thought or less confident. It was a veneer.

“But it was a veneer of polish that gets people a long way, something independent schools can give people.”

So does she agree with the Sutton Trust, a charity that helps to provide educational opportunities for pupils from non-privileged backgrounds, which said recently that the state should help fund places for bright children from poor backgrounds at the best private schools?

Her reaction is cautious. “I think we have to be very careful about taking steps that would actually lead to too high or too early selection and not having really clear opportunities for people to move between systems. One of the problems is – and I’ve seen it with my own three children – is that that people develop at different stages…and you have to have really open and flexible systems of education to make that possible.”

What continues to motivate her in her work as a barrister, broadcaster and campaigner she says, is a belief in social justice, fairness and a vision of a more equal society. Having experienced, first hand, the transformative nature of education, she is passionate about offering that opportunity to others.

“I think for me it is the fact that education changed my life…I want people to be liberated and to be free to make choices in their lives and to be able to stretch themselves and to be able to have that bigger experience and to know what makes the world tick – and for me, that’s what education did. And I want that to be available to my kind of folk.”

Does satisfactory require improvement?

Ofsted has announced a consultation which will propose replacing the ‘satisfactory’ grade with ‘requires improvement’ for all further education (FE) colleges.

The inspection shake-up follows similar suggestions put forward by the new chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, in a bid to tackle “coasting schools”.

Matthew Coffey, national director of learning and skills at Ofsted (pictured right), said the new rating could be put into effect from September 2012.

Mr Coffey said: “Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, announced on 17 January 2012 his intention to scrap the ‘satisfactory’ grade for school inspections and to replace it with ‘requires improvement’.

“The same arguments for doing so apply to the learning and skills sector as for schools.

“Ofsted will therefore further consult with the sector on making the same change in respect of the grade criteria used for the Common Inspection Framework from September 2012.”

Ofsted say they will publish the new inspection arrangements in May, alongside the results of the previous consultation, ‘Common Inspection Framework 2012’, which ended in November 2011.

The Institute for Learning (IfL) says changing the ‘satisfactory’ grade will not by itself force colleges to improve.

Toni Fazaeli, IfL’s chief executive, said: “Everyone involved in teaching and learning understands that all learners deserve high-quality provision.

“They need to learn in conditions where their teachers and trainers are given proper opportunities and support to continually develop and improve their practice.

“Changing the satisfactory grade alone will not achieve this.”

Ms Fazaeli said adding an additional rating, such as the proposed ‘requires improvement’, would not be enough to improve the performance of FE colleges.

“We do not believe an additional grade would benefit the sector but, nor would a simple rebrand,” she said.

“Ofsted needs to look at how seriously institutions take the development needs and conditions of their teachers and trainers.”

She added: “Our members frequently tell us that administrative burdens are a significant barrier to reflecting on and developing their practice as professionals thus inhibiting their ability to update and to try new approaches, fully utilise technology and ultimately improve their practice.”

The Association of Colleges (AoC) say they welcome the consultation and want ‘satisfactory and improving’ to be considered by Ofsted as a new rating.

“We are pleased that Ofsted intends to consult the sector on the proposal to change the grade name from ‘satisfactory’ to ‘requires improvement’,” Joy Mercer, director of education policy at the AoC said.

“AoC and partners will respond in full to that consultation; our response will be clear about the number of colleges (including those who have recently merged) on an improvement trajectory.”

She added: “As such, there is an argument that ‘satisfactory and improving’ could be a useful additional judgement (distinct from ‘requires improvement’).”

The 157 Group say the satisfactory rating “implies a negative concept”, while the other Ofsted ratings are “somewhat subjective”.

“We believe a rebranding of the satisfactory grade may  be better as there has to be a middle way between outstanding and inadequate,” a 157 Group spokesperson said.

“Good would be fine and we  can appreciate that we should all should be above satisfactory. ”

The spokesperson added: “The use of the term now does implies a negative concept and it was not meant to do that in the framework.

“The grades however are somewhat subjective and we believe that the below average scale does not necessarily mean poor.”

Mr Coffey justified Ofsted’s proposals and explained the findings of the last annual report at the EMFEC Centenary Conference, held in Daventry two weeks ago.

Mr Coffey said: “The annual report this year for Ofsted was actually quite hard hitting, and quite hard hitting on the FE and skills sector.

“What we did find, and that may have been lost in translation, is that there is outstanding teaching and learning in colleges, there’s outstanding teaching and learning across the board of all that we inspect in learning and skills.

“But of course, without sufficient consistency, that didn’t lead to overall outstanding grades for the quality of teaching.”

Mr Coffey said previous proposals to scrap the ‘satisfactory’ grade for schools didn’t reference colleges because Sir Michael Wilshaw had “a greater level of comfort” in that area of education.

“Stuck at satisfactory was again a theme which came out of this year’s annual report,” Mr Coffey said.

“So Michael has chosen to focus in on this in his early days of chief inspector and naturally his schools background have led him to have a greater level of comfort at this moment in time to speak eloquently on those particular subjects.”

Forty five colleges, 75 independent learning providers and 11 providers of adult and community learning were judged to be either ‘satisfactory’ or ‘inadequate’ in the last annual report published by Ofsted.

Of the 45 colleges, 22 had received the ‘satisfactory’ grade for two consecutive inspections, with a further 16 receiving the grade for three inspections running.

Mr Coffey said: “There is overwhelming support for us to look down the lens at satisfactory.

“So I am going to come back out to the sector and talk to you about where we see the differences.”

The merits of an FE loans system debated

Pictured above from left to right: Paul Warner, AELP, David Hughes, NIACE, and Martin Doel, AoC, at the EMFEC Centenary Conference in Daventry 

The FE loans system proposed by government has been criticised by the leaders of three key membership bodies.

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE), Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC) and Paul Warner, director of employment and skills at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), say they’re concerned with the government’s proposals.

“The whole Level 3 and FE loans debate, I think, has been very shallow and very limited,” Mr Hughes said.

“I just don’t think we’ve got into the detail of it at all really.”

The three leaders debated the implications of the FE loans system, during a discussion on the sector as a whole at the EMFEC Centenary Conference.

The new system proposed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) will require learners aged 24 and above to take out a loan if they wish to study at level 3 or 4.

Students will be affected by the loans system from the 2013/14 academic year and begin repayments once they have left the course and started earning more than £21,000.

Mr Hughes said: “A lot of the Level 3 qualifications we know don’t give the return and some of those are the sorts of qualifications, in care for instance, it’s very likely isn’t it that we’re going to say to people, here’s a Level 3, you can do it, you’ll probably never earn over £21,000 if you stay in the job that this qualification qualifies you for.

“Is that good, or is that bad?”

Mr Hughes added: “People sit with the debt for 30 years before it gets written off.

“The implications of that in terms of who gets recruited and who wants to actually take on that debt…there are all sort of issues that we need to address.”

The Student Loans Company (SLC) will be in charge of assessing all FE loans applications and make initial payments to the college or training organisation on behalf of the learner.

A final Impact Assessment and Equality Impact Assessment of FE Loans is expected from BIS before April 2012.

Mr Warner, meanwhile, said the sector was “sleepwalking” into an FE loans system which had been created in reaction to the economic crisis.

“It does look like a reaction to where we are at the moment,” Mr Warner said.

“If it is seen somehow as the right and durable thing to do in the longer term, that isn’t clear at all, and that argument isn’t really being had.

He added: “It almost feels like the sector is sleepwalking into FE loans.

“Again, I’m not really understanding quite why we’re doing it beyond the view at a fairly shallow level that it’s where we are at, there is no money, we’ve got to get money somewhere, and that’s the way we can get out of it for the moment.”

Mr Warner emphasised that it was important to ask how the FE loans system would sit alongside existing funding models, as well as its on-going impact on the sector.

“If it’s here for the longer term, we do need to understand why is it here, what is it going to do and how it is going to fit into the landscape,” Mr Warner said.

“None of that is really being debated.”

The government has provided a budget of £129 million for FE loans in the 2013/14 financial year, with a further £398 million for 2014/15.

Mr Doel said the FE loans system looked like “the least worst alternative” for the FE sector.

Mr Doel said: “A wake up and smell the coffee moment is, if the alternative is a lovely loan scheme for post-25, or no investment for post-25, an FE loans scheme suddenly looks a bit better than it would have done.”

“There is always an on-going and sensible argument for more resources for things that matter, so it’s never a closed conversation about more money in order to do things.

“But if there is no more money, and life is difficult at present time as we all know, then an FE loans scheme probably looks the least worse alternative at this stage.”

Mr Doel also said the FE loans system had been drawn up far too quickly by government.

“This has been done at a completely disreputable speed, which things are done within our sector,” he said.

“That’s why things don’t endure, it fails the competency test on any number of levels of introduction, so I think we need to think that through.”

Click here for more on the EMFEC Centenary Conference.

The ACE new system for apprenticeships

The new online certification system for apprenticeships, designed to reduce bureaucracy and improve quality, has been launched.

Apprenticeship Certificates England (ACE) replaces the paper-based system previously provided by the 25 Sector Skills Councils (SSCs).It cost £120,000 to develop and has been set up by the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils, who will manage the system, with the National Apprenticeship Service.

The cost per certificate is £22, which is lower than the £30 previously charged under the old system, and is defined by three foil seals: bronze, for an intermediate apprenticeship, silver, for an advanced apprenticeship, and gold for a higher apprenticeship.

The Alliance say the new centralised ACE system will save apprenticeship training providers and issuing authorities time, resource and investment and allow them to track the progress of candidates.

Although the cost per certificate has been set, the Alliance say it is “too early to say” if it will remain the same in the future.

A spokesperson for the Alliance said: “The Alliance will review these costs ongoing as part of the quality assurance processes that have been put in place.”

The Alliance has also revealed to FE Week that they could generate £4.4 million from the first year of the new ACE system.

The spokesperson added: “There are approximately 450,000 new apprentices in the system at any one time. However, it is important to note that some of these apprentices will be on three year programmes.

“It is expected that the number of certificates issued in the first year will be around 200,000. The money generated from this will be used to operate the new centralised system and resource the SSCs/SSBs who will be responsible for protecting the integrity of apprenticeship frameworks by checking each certificate request meets requirements of particular apprenticeship frameworks.

“We will keep costs under review and if the number of certificates issued rises. It may be possible to reduce the charge.”

The system was launched at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), by John Hayes, minister for FE who, with the click of a button, printed the first two certificates.

Mr Hayes said: “The government is restoring practical learning to its rightful place as a hallmark of personal attainment and national pride. Apprenticeships are a gold standard qualification and its right that the hard work of people who undertake them should be marked and celebrated.”

John Rogers, executive chairman of the Alliance, said: “Apprenticeships play an important role in the provision of a highly skilled workforce in England and it is vital that we ensure individuals have the right skills, at the right time, to ensure they are best-placed to take advantage of the opportunities that arise as the economy continues to recover.”

Prior to receiving her award, Tammy Barrow, who received a silver certificate for completing a Level 3 in health, said: “I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve got the confidence now to study and progress in this field.”

Pietro Dirienzo, who passed his Level 2 in plumbing and heating, added: “It’s surreal being here. It’s all happened so quickly but it’s very exciting.”

Concern over college recruitment trends

Worrying trends have been revealed in the recruitment of Level 1 and Entry Level students.

In their latest survey on 16-18 recruitment, the Association of Colleges (AoC) has found Level 1 learner numbers declined by 6.6 per cent and Entry Level figures by around 6.4 per cent on last year.

The data was collected from a total of 231 institutions enrolling more than 530,000 young people aged 16-18.

It shows that overall 16-18 year old learner numbers in the sample declined by 1.78 per cent between 2010/11 and 2011/12.

However, the recruitment pattern was varied, with more than 41 per cent of colleges reporting an increase in enrolment numbers and around 59 per cent a decline.

AoC chief executive Martin Doel said the survey “gives us the most detailed picture yet of recruitment among colleges from September 2011 onwards and allows us to make some valuable conclusions”.

Mr Doel also said autumn term recruitment drive of colleges “appears to have had a positive impact on enrolment” and that the decline of less than two per cent is consistent with earlier studies.

However, he added: “Worryingly, however, the trends related to Level 1 and Entry Level Students that were identified in earlier versions of this survey, echoed in the latest statistics about young people not in education or training, continue.

“The drop in the number of students leaving school with low levels of qualifications starting at college this year has been the most dramatic, even if it has improved since the previous study.

“In addition, the decline is steeper in the most deprived areas of the country.”

“If these young people are not studying at college then they are most likely to drop out of education altogether because most schools do not provide the types of courses they need, and work-based learning routes like apprenticeships are closed to them.”

The task now, Mr Doel said, is identifying the reasons behind the figures.

Mr Doel added: “Although the recruitment picture is clearer it is, sadly, less obvious as to what is driving this decline in enrolments among those students leaving school with the least qualifications.

“Our members tell us that the loss of the Connexions service and the erosion of independent advice and guidance is likely to have had a significant impact, as have, say members, local authority transport cuts and the disappearance of the Education Maintenance Allowance.

“Students’ worries about employment prospects and higher education costs may also be a stumbling block to aspiration.”

In the meantime, Mr Doel wants the government to continue to work with the AoC and its partners to understand “cause and effect” in the behaviours of the age group.

He said: “In tandem, we believe that there is a need for a more co-ordinated policy programme across Government departments, predicated on robust research.

“Underpinning policy development should be the consistent guiding principle that government and its agencies should eradicate the various barriers that, as indicated by our research, too many young people face when seeking to enrol on quality courses that lead to employment for themselves, and provide wider socio-economic benefits to their communities.”

Colleges working harder than ever to help unemployed, say AoC

Colleges provide training for more than 1000 unemployed people each year, according to a report by the Association of Colleges (AoC).

The research, conducted by the AoC in November 2011, found that 95 per cent of colleges offer provision for unemployed people.

A further 64 per cent responded saying they had improved their provision to help meet the needs of job seekers.

Martin Doel, chief executive of the AoC, said: “Colleges are integral to the local communities they serve and are well-placed to provide responsive programmes to help people into employment.

“Our members are showing real flexibility and initiative in this area and their links with employers and JCP mean that those candidates they put forward for jobs are ready for work.

“Not only are they providing people with the skills they need, but they are helping increase their confidence with personal advice and tailored support.”

Twelve per cent of survey respondents said they were helping more than 2,000 unemployed people each year, adding to a total of 220,000 gaining work-related education and skills at colleges across England.

The research, published today in ‘Back to Work: Colleges Supporting Sustainable Jobs’, follows record figures of youth unemployment published last week.

“With 2.6 million people out of work, including over a million young people, colleges are working harder than ever to give people the skills they need to find a job,” Mr Doel added.

More than half of FE colleges said poor job prospects were the biggest challenge when working with young people.

The AoC added that nearly half of all FE colleges thought the funding rules imposed by government were hindering the offer they could make to unemployed people.